Throughout much of my adolescence, I was very conscious of forever being alone in my bedroom, certainly no girls ever found their way there in any meaningful way. The bedroom in which this solitude seemed to matter most was that in my parents' flat in Menton Garavan, France. Throughout much of the 1960s, my family would spend their summer holidays there and from 1967, I would tend to travel with my male friends and holiday there, enjoying the greater opportunity for the expression of personal liberty.
It was during the summer holidays of 1968 that this longing to know a young woman in his bedroom really took hold. Piroska, a striking and sensuous Hungarian girl whose family moved to Sweden in 1956, was the object of desire. Unfortunately for me she had a steady boyfriend, a fine young man who motorcycled all the way from their home town of Uppsala to be with her for some part of the holidays. Although their passions were no doubt satisfied, mine certainly were not.
One afternoon towards the end of the holidays, recognising my undiminished intensity of feelings for her, Piroska did enter the bedroom, and in the deeply shuttered southern light, unbuttoned her garment allowing me the gratifying sight of her exposed breasts. What beauty, but 'Noli Tangere' !
The bathroom in this flat would be dimly lit by a small tungsten tube augmented by borrowed sunlight passing through a small window high up in the adjoining bedroom wall. Whilst undertaking ablutions in the gloaming of this bathroom, I would often muse on finding some desirable female whose unmasked, suntanned body was there to await me on my return to the bedroom. A couple more years had to pass before this truly became the case.
In this resulting work, the two translucent half-tone photographic images, taken in 2000, depict views seen either side of this window - the orange trapezium (am.) observed whilst lying in bed, the clear blue rectangle of shuttered light observed whilst seated upon the waterworks. The pale mauve and yellow head in silhouette is mine, the by-product from an image made not long after the above mentioned episode. The other squares of information and circular forms emerged independently as parts of ongoing studies in the expression of 'wholeness and nothingness' and circumstantially found their way into becoming part of this work.
The assemblage of this rigid and formal composition may have taken six years, and another six before the addition of a little integral lighting, but that is as nothing compared to those enduring happy, fruitful memories of balmy, carefree summers in Menton, many years ago.
And of course, there were always those nipples.
